The Rising (4 page)

When I got back over the border, I drove up to Letterkenny to leave the dental records in the General Hospital where the post-mortem was to be conducted on Monday. I was getting used to driving again, turning my body a little to one side in the seat to avoid putting any pressure on my left shoulder blade.

On my way back home, Patterson phoned me. He had spoken to Kielty’s mother himself. She hadn’t seen him in a few days, she claimed. Patterson told her that a body had been found and that he would keep her informed. He did not comment on how she had reacted to such news.

‘I’ve had Technical check out that phone,’ he added. ‘It seems to be Kielty’s. A lot of incoming calls, which suggests he was a dealer rather than a user. None were answered after 10.15 on Thursday night.’

‘Yet the fire was after 4 a.m., which suggests he was dead six hours before the fire was started.’

‘Technical identified one number which was used by Kielty a lot, earlier last month, as belonging to Lorcan Hutton.’

‘Hutton. The girlfriend mentioned him too.’

‘Might be worth bringing him in; see what he has to say,’ Patterson suggested.

I drove round to Hutton’s house in Rolston Court, on the off-chance I might catch him on the hoof. The problem with bringing him in for questioning was that he tended to lawyer up very quickly. His parents were both doctors and spared nothing in their treatment of him – even continuing to support him when he began peddling drugs to the teenagers of the borderlands.

In the end, his house was empty, which was probably just as well, for it was approaching seven, I hadn’t been home all day, and my back was aching again.

I radioed through to Central Communications, asking for a bulletin to be issued directing all local guards to be on the lookout for Lorcan Hutton.

Then, praying for a quiet evening, I headed back home.

Following Patterson’s relocation to Letterkenny, I had been left in charge of Lifford station. In reality, this ‘promotion’ meant having to take every call-out that occurred this side of Letterkenny, regardless of the time of day. That night, I had hoped that Patterson would allow me some leeway because of my injury. It seemed I was wrong.

I snapped a terse greeting when I answered the phone at 3.30 a.m. the following morning, assuming it to be Letterkenny station.

Instead, a female voice answered; a voice that was somehow familiar. ‘Hello?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘It’s Caroline Williams, sir,’ the voice said.

‘Caroline!’ I said, squinting at the bedside clock to make sure I’d read it properly. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘I’m sorry to phone; I need your help. It’s Peter.’

Within half an hour I was dressed and on the road. Debbie was unhappy about my leaving again, and the stinging ache of my back meant I would happily have stayed in bed, but I felt I could not refuse.

Peter, Caroline’s son, had been almost nine when they left Lifford for Sligo, after Caroline’s resignation from the force, which put him around fifteen years of age by now. Apparently, Peter and one of his friends had gone camping near Rossnowlagh, an Atlantic beach situated a few miles north of Bundoran, at the furthest reach of Donegal County. According to his friend, Peter had gone out of his tent to go to the toilet at around two in the morning and had not returned. He had phoned his father, who in turn had contacted Caroline to tell her Peter was missing. She had contacted everyone she knew in the area to assemble a search party. And then she had called me.

An hour later I stood with around a dozen other volunteers on the headland overlooking Rossnowlagh beach, where Peter’s tent was pitched, my coat buttoned against a bracing Atlantic wind. The edge of the headland was fenced by paired steel poles running horizontally, supported by concrete bollards every twenty yards or so. It was a basic affair, but enough to prevent someone falling over the edge accidentally.

Caroline came over to me when she saw me, her arms stiffly by her sides, her coat sleeves pulled down over her hands. Her face was flushed, her eyes raw with tears. Her hair, now curly, hung in straggles around her face. She hugged me fiercely, then stepped back.

‘Thanks for coming, sir,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know who else to call.’

‘I’m sure everything will be all right,’ I said, trying as best I could to sound sincere. ‘Anything I can do?’

Caroline nodded over her shoulder at an elderly man speaking to a group carrying torches. I recognized him as Caroline’s father; he had come to collect her and Peter when they had moved from Lifford. ‘Dad’s taking care of everything,’ she said. ‘He’s been great.’

Looking down towards the beach, where the tide rushed the sand, I could see an inflatable approaching the shore, its spotlight raking the beach. Within the hour, I knew the coastguard helicopter would likewise be sweeping the shoreline.

‘What about Peter’s friend?’ I asked.

Caroline groaned lightly. ‘Cahir Murphy. Peter told me that a group of them would be here. If I’d known it was just Murphy I’d . . .’ The sentence faded into the wind.

‘He’s over here,’ she added instead, leading me over to where the tent had been pitched. Circular pools of torchlight projected the silhouettes of its two occupants against the canvas.

At the entrance to the tent stood a middle-aged Garda officer. He watched us approach, rubbing one eye with his middle finger as he did so. His breath carried the smell of coffee and cigarettes, and breath mints.

‘DI Devlin,’ I said by way of introduction.

‘Dillon,’ he replied. He pointed into the tent where his partner squatted, talking intently to a teenager I took to be Cahir Murphy. ‘He’s McCready.’

‘I’m here as a friend of Ms Williams,’ I said.

He looked at me levelly for a moment, then turned his attention to Caroline. His gaze settled on her chest and did not waver.

Cahir Murphy sat cross-legged on the ground inside the tent, his unzipped sleeping bag wrapped shawl-like around his shoulders. In one hand he held a cigarette, in the other an empty beer can, which he was using as an ashtray. The whites of his eyes were laced with blood vessels, though he appeared in control both of himself and the situation in which he found himself. He looked up at me as I peered in through the tent entrance.

‘Who’s he?’ he asked.

The young Guard in the tent with him twisted to face me. He looked to be in his late twenties. He wore his uniform neatly, his tie knot tight to his throat. He was thin, his face newly shaven despite the hour.

‘Benedict Devlin,’ I said, deliberately omitting my title in case the presence of a third Garda overwhelmed the boy. I needn’t have bothered.

‘You’re the Guard?’ Murphy said.

‘That’s right,’ I replied.

‘Peter said his mum talks about you
all
the time,’ he said.

I glanced around the interior of the tent. It was big enough for four at least. ‘Sorry for interrupting,’ I said.

The young Guard turned towards Murphy again. ‘Anyone drinking this evening, Cahir?’

‘Nah, no drink,’ he said. ‘Coke and Fanta and stuff, just.’

‘Apart from that beer can you’re using as an ashtray,’ I pointed out.

Murphy looked at the can in his hands, then dropped his own butt into it where it extinguished with a hiss.

‘Maybe one or two,’ he said. ‘Nothing much. He wasn’t drunk, like. He’d only had a can.’

‘What do you think happened to him?’ I asked.

Murphy looked at me a little defiantly. ‘I don’t know. He just vanished. One minute he was standing here and then he was gone.’

I turned to Caroline, only to realize that she had moved away from the group and stood alone at the edge of the headland. She cupped her hands around her mouth, and began howling her son’s name, forlornly against the prevailing wind, the word almost indecipherable beyond the anguished tone of her cries. To the east, someone else took up the cry of the boy’s name. As I exited the tent, I found myself doing likewise, our voices rising together into the chilled night air.

A quarter of an hour later, the young Guard approached me, a plastic bag in his hand.

‘Can I have a word, sir?’ he said.

‘What can I do for you . . .?’ I couldn’t recall what Dillon had called him.

‘McCready, sir. Joe McCready,’ he said, extending his hand.

‘Good to meet you, Joe McCready.’ I shook, feeling the wet and grit off his hand.

‘Sorry, sir. I’ve been looking through the bins. I forgot to wash my hands.’

McCready saw from my expression that some further explanation was necessary.

As he spoke, I noticed his partner sauntering over towards us. He winked at me conspiratorially, then nodded towards McCready.

‘What did you find?’ I asked.

‘Thirteen cans, sir, all the same brand and same bags. The fourteenth is being used as an ashtray by Cahir Murphy.’

The older Guard looked at me, his mouth bleary with lack of sleep. ‘So they were drinking. So what?’

‘It’s not the drinking,’ McCready said, ‘so much as the lying about it. What else is he lying about? Fourteen cans seems excessive even for two young fellas; especially considering Murphy’s not that well on. He doesn’t strike me as the kind to tidy after himself either.’

‘Where did you find them?’

McCready led Dillon and me to the edge of an adjoining field where a large plastic wheeled bin had been left for campers to dump their rubbish. It was empty now.

Looking up, across the field beside us, I could see a small caravan park, the vehicles sitting symmetrically in rows. The park was in darkness; most of the caravans would be empty at this time of year.

‘It might be worthwhile taking a look over there,’ I suggested.

The caravans were parked in nine rows, so we took three rows apiece. I took the furthest three rows from the entrance, which were also the closest to the headland where Peter had been camping. I walked along the first row, glancing under each caravan before checking the doors. As I reached the end of the first of my rows, though, the constant stooping caused the wound on my back to start aching and I decided to settle with checking the doors of the caravans themselves.

It was on the turn to the third row that I noticed something odd about the caravan to my immediate left. The outer flange of the door had been bent backwards slightly, the deadbolt exposed by my torchlight. I found that, with minimal force, the door opened. I called out before entering.

‘Hello?’

Silence. I raked the torchlight across the interior. The vehicle smelled musty, as if it had not been used in a while. The ceiling was low, the interior cramped with furniture.

‘Anyone here?’ I called.

Somewhere further back in the vehicle I could hear the dripping of a leaky tap. I stood a moment, the torch held down by my leg, allowing my eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, waiting. Finally, I heard the laboured suspiration of one releasing a pent-up breath, the sound low and soft enough to cause my skin to prickle with goosebumps. I moved towards the back of the caravan, the torch low. Then, as I passed the table at the seating area, I caught a glimpse of something red beneath it.

‘Hello?’ I said again, more speculative this time.

I approached the table, angling the torch beam to better see what was beneath the table.

‘Peter?’ I said, quietly, suddenly aware of the silence around us.

No response. I stooped slightly to look more closely. Just as I realized it was a rucksack, the door of the toilet cubicle behind me flung open and someone shoved past me knocking me flat on the floor.

I scrabbled after the figure. He wore jeans and a puffy blue jacket, his build slight. I grabbed at his leg, managing to grip his ankle. He turned and kicked viciously backwards several times, the sole of his trainer connecting with my temple. Having forced me to release my grip, he stumbled to the doorway and fell out onto the grass.

Blundering out after him, I shouted to Dillon and McCready. I could see the two of them scanning the caravan park trying to locate the cause of the disturbance. In the middle distance I heard more shouting from the headland and saw the bobbing of torchlight across the field as they ran to join us.

I looked around but could not see my assailant. Dropping to my knees, I leant down and shone my torch under the caravans. My wound reacted angrily to the movement and I had to swallow back the bile that rose with the pain. Nothing.

Moving on to the next row, next to Dillon, I repeated the manoeuvre. There, four caravans up, I caught a flash of blue as the boy tried to squeeze under the vehicle.

‘There,’ I shouted to Dillon, as the man lumbered towards the caravan.

Seeing his approach, the figure struggled all the more, and managed to make it to the other side before Dillon had a chance to grab him.

Cursing the man’s inefficiency, I called to McCready as I ran up the next row. I went as quickly as I could, but my lungs felt ready to burst, my throat burning with each gasp of air. The boy was much faster than me, sprinting past each caravan, closing constantly the distance between him and the low wall at the top of the park.